Genesis 21:19

Summary

The verse narrates how God opened Hagar's eyes so she could see a well of water, after which she went, filled the water skin, and gave the boy a drink. The action moves through four sequential verbs describing perception followed by three practical actions.

Key words

• yifKach ("he opened", H6491) — qal narrative form; the verb of opening applies to the eyes as the direct object, describing an act attributed to Elohim.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — grammatically plural noun functioning as the subject of the singular verb yifKach.
• Tere' ("she saw", H7200G) — qal narrative "she" form, continuing the narrative chain begun by the previous verb; the object seen is be'Er Mayim ("a well of water").
• temaLe' ("she filled", H4390) — piel (intensive) stem, in contrast to the simple qal forms used elsewhere in the verse; it marks the filling of the skin as a completed, forceful action.
• Tashk ("she gave a drink to", H8248H) — hiphil (causative) stem, indicating that the subject caused the boy to drink, rather than simply drinking herself.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of five narrative verbs, each introduced by the vav-conversive (va, H9001), producing a sequence: "and he opened... and she saw... and she went... and she filled... and she gave to drink." This chain structure is typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose, where each new action follows directly from the previous one without additional connectors beyond the repeated vav.

The subject of the first verb, Elohim (H0430G), is morphologically plural but takes a singular verb, yifKach (H6491), a common grammatical pattern in Biblical Hebrew for this noun. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) appears three times (before "her eyes," "the skin," and "the lad"), marking the definite objects of the verbs without being translated itself. The switch in stem from qal (used for "opened," "saw," "went") to piel for temaLe' ("she filled," H4390) and hiphil for Tashk ("she gave a drink," H8248H) marks a shift in verbal intensity and causation: piel intensifies the action of filling, while hiphil frames the final act as causing another party (the boy) to receive water, rather than the woman drinking herself.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew be'Er Mayim ("a well of water", H0875 + H4325G) is rendered in the LXX as φρέαρ ζῶντος ("well of living [water]"), introducing the qualifier "living" not present in the Hebrew construct phrase. The Vulgate's puteum aquae ("well of water") follows the Hebrew construct more closely without this addition.